**2. Methods**

Investigations of local goats in the USA have been undertaken throughout the last four decades by the Livestock Conservancy (LC), a nonprofit organization working in the United States to assess and document the status of breed populations and the population structures of each of them. The LC does its assessment by a periodic census of all breeds and candidate breed populations for both privately held and institutional herds. Local populations are often encountered that have no history of formal breeder organization or breed definition. These populations are each assessed for inclusion as breeds by documenting their history, phenotype, and any available genetic results in order to make decisions as to their validity as populations with sufficient genetic uniformity to serve effectively as genetic resources. Once accepted as genetic resources (more formally as "breeds"), each is then further supported by organization of breeders and development of conservation strategies that are appropriate for the breed based on history and cultural factors. This may involve herdbooks and individual animal registration, or other strategies for more local breeds kept in more extensive situations where individual registration is not realistic. The background factors for each breed, along with the census, allow the Livestock Conservancy to establish priorities as well as strategies for effective conservation and promotion.
